Chesapeake Bay Trust establishes $17M environmental justice participatory fund

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The Annapolis-based Chesapeake Bay Trust and nine other partners has been selected to receive and administer a $17 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program to establish and seed the Mid-Atlantic Environmental Justice Fund, the first large-scale environmental justice participatory fund in the region.

A participatory fund is a method of grant-making in which members of impacted communities have the power to decide who and what to fund.

The Chesapeake Bay Trust, the distributor of funds from the Maryland Chesapeake vehicle license plate program and 40 other sources across the seven-jurisdiction watershed, has long empowered communities and groups to lead environmental actions through grant-making and other resources.

The Trust will partner with Dr. Sacoby Wilson, the co-director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 3 Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center and the Director of the Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health (CEEJH); the National Wildlife Federation (NWF); Howard University, Environmental Finance Center (EFC); and a network of regional environmental justice leaders to establish the Mid-Atlantic Environmental Justice Fund to advance environmental justice, urban forestry, public health, economic opportunity, and climate resilience through ecological services that are co-designed and co-delivered.

The Mid-Atlantic Environmental Justice Fund is the first of its kind in the Chesapeake region and stands to correct longstanding injustices for communities most affected by pollution by providing funding and resources directly to the communities and community-based organizations that have historically faced constraints in competing for funding to address environmental justice issues. In addition to awarding grants to under-resourced groups, the Fund’s core partners will provide outreach and technical assistance support so a larger number of grantees can more effectively address localized and systemic disparities in environmental and public health.